Engineer Combat Battalion

Also known as "Combat Engineer Battalions", they were typically divided into four companies: A, B, C, and Headquarters and Service (H&S).

[1]: Chapter 5 Best known for pontoon bridge construction and clearing hazards in amphibious landings, their duties also included serving as sappers deploying and deactivating explosive charges and unexploded munitions, mapmaking, camouflage, and a wide variety of construction services supporting frontline troops.

Among the most familiar for their heroism and contributions to establishing key bridgeheads in Europe was at the Ludendorff Bridge at the Battle of Remagen.

Combat engineers also played roles in several unconventional operations, including the securing of elements of the German nuclear weapons program in Operation Big[2] and recovery of stolen art and treasure subsequently returned to its original owners by the Monuments Men.

50th Engineers fought back immediately and kept fighting while nearby combat units arrived.

World War II recruiting poster for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Combat Engineers ferried infantry and special forces troops in craft such as this M2 assault boat at Dornot-Corny, Lorraine in World War II
Infantry support bridge over the Saar River erected by 289th Combat Engineers at Volklingen , Germany
Pontoon bridge built by the 51st Engineer Combat Battalion across the Rhine, upstream from the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen
1269th engineers attached to the technology-capturing T-Force of the Alsos Mission dismantle a nuclear pile built by German scientists in Haigerloch , Germany, April 1945 [ 2 ]